Dmitriy Raevskiy
“Doctor of History Dmitriy Raevskiy (1941-2004) who specialized in Scythian archaeology tried to define the function of Tabiti by analyzing the function of the Greek goddess Hestia first with whom Herodotus observed certain similarities: “In Greece during the classical period, Hestia was perceived mainly as the goddess of the hearth in the home and she did not play a major role in theology and mythology. However, a comparative-historical study of this image reveals that it is based on the ancient fire god of all Indo-Europeans, which in the mythology of the Indo-Aryans is paralleled by the god Agni, and in the Iranian world – by Atar. It is important in this case that the Greeks identified the fire worshipped by the Iranians again with Hestia. The stable ancient Greek tradition in which every sacrificial rite starts and ends with the sacrifice to be offered to Hestia, and each appeal to the gods starts by mentioning her name, finds a direct analogy in the Vedic arias: here the mentioning of the gods is a canonical element; even the Rigveda starts with a hymn to Agni and ends with a hymn addressed to that deity. It is possible to assume common roots of this practice also in the most ancient Indo-European ritual and its reflection may be considered to be the placing of Tabiti in the beginning of Herodotus’ description of the Scythian pantheon…”
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